Payne 


Quarter-century  of 
English  Literature 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT 


I 


A    QUARTER-CENTURY 
OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE 


A  Quarter- Century  of 
English  Literature 

1 880-1905 

By 
William  iMorton  Payne,  LL.  D. 


Chicago   Literary   Club 
1908 


Copyright,  1908 

BY 

WILLIAM   MORTON   PAYNE 


4-G 


A    QUARTER-CENTURY 
OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE 


QUARTER  of  a  century 
is  something  less  than  a 
full  generation,  but  it  is  a 
period  of  time  sufficient  to 
bring  about,  in  most  of  the 
great  departments  of  hu- 
man activity,  a  fairly  com- 
plete shifting  of  actors,  and 
scenes,  and  interests.  This  statement  par- 
ticularly holds  if  we  apply  it  to  the  history 
of  English  and  American  literature  during 
the  past  twenty-five  years,  in  illustration 
whereof  a  few  facts  may  be  presented. 
Beginning  with  the  year  1881,  our  common 
literature  entered  upon  a  period  of  severe 
losses,  and  the  landmarks  of  the  earlier  age 
disappeared  from  view  with  startling  rapid- 
ity. While  the  decade  just  preceding  had 
witnessed  the  death  (to  mention  only 
names  of  considerable  significance)  of  Bul- 


wer,  Mill,  and  Kingsley  in  England,  and  of 
Bryant  and  Taylor  in  America,  the  decade 
following  plunged  us  into  mourning,  in 
England  for  Carlyle,  George  Eliot,  Darwin, 
Rossetti,  Reade,  Arnold,  and  Browning; 
and  in  America  for  Lanier,  Emerson,  and 
Longfellow.  A  few  years  later,  this  necrol- 
ogy of  genius  was  extended  to  include  the 
names  of  Tennyson,  Morris,  Newman, 
Ruskin,  Christina  Rossetti,  Huxley,  Sym- 
onds,  Pater,  Whittier,  Whitman,  Holmes, 
and  Lowell,  Other  names  as  important  as 
some  of  these  might  be  added  to  the  list, 
but  enough  have  been  mentioned  to  show 
how  nearly,  upon  this  checker-board  of 
nights  and  days,  the  spirit  who  plans  the 
moves  had  put  back  into  the  closet  the 
major  pieces  of  the  game  before  the  nine- 
teenth century  reached  its  close. 

Let  us  look  at  these  facts  in  another 
light,  at  the  same  time  making  some  sort 
of  rude  effort  to  classify  them.  At  the 
close  of  1880,  the  six  great  poets  who  had 
long  made  illustrious  the  Victorian  age  of 
English  song  were  all  living  and  all  vocal. 
Within  sixteen  years,  five  of  the  six  had 
passed  away,  leaving  Mr.  Swinburne  the 
sole  surviving  representative  of  that  great 
period.  Less  than  this  number  of  years 
had  sufficed  to  extinguish  the  entire  con- 
stellation of  our  greater  American  poets, 
not  one  of  their  fellowship  being  left  us  to 


keep  the  torch  ahght.  With  George  EHot 
there  died  the  last  of  the  great  English 
novelists,  for  it  could  not  be  soberly  urged 
that  she  has  found  a  true  successor.  Two 
novelists  of  unquestionably  distinguished 
achievement  —  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy  and  Sir 
George  Meredith — still  live  to  remind  us 
of  the  great  age  of  English  fiction,  but 
their  following  is  an  esoteric  cult  in  com- 
parison with  the  wide  acclaim  accorded  to 
Dickens  and  Thackeray.  The  twentieth 
century,  moreover,  finds  us  as  bereft  of 
prophets  as  of  novelists  and  poets.  The 
wisest  of  our  time  must  seem  but  minor 
prophets  when  we  contrast  their  utterances 
with  the  burning  eloquence  of  Carlyle  and 
Ruskin,  or  even  with  the  persuasive  accents 
of  Arnold  and  Newman.  Truly,  the  living 
word  as  it  comes  to  the  ears  of  our  youth 
of  to-day  is  but  a  feeble  and  ineffectual 
stimulus  to  noble  thought  and  action,  in 
comparison  with  the  call  that  rang  in  the 
ears  of  the  rising  generation  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago. 

It  should  be  fairly  evident,  then,  from 
this  brief  survey,  that  the  English-speaking 
people  are  no  longer  living  in  a  creative 
age,  that  their  literary  lot  is  now  cast  in 
such  a  critical  or  Alexandrine  period  as 
usually  supervenes  when  a  great  creative 
impulse  is  spent.  This  is  by  no  means  the 
same  as  saying  that  we  have  fallen  upon 


evil  days.  On  the  contrary,  such  a  season 
of  stock-taking,  of  self-examination,  of  re- 
action from  exuberance,  has  distinct  advan- 
tages of  its  own.  It  is  the  inheritor  of  all 
that  is  great  and  splendid  in  the  past,  and 
it  is  in  a  position  to  classify,  to  balance,  to 
weigh,  to  digest,  and  to  view  in  the  right 
perspective  its  accumulated  possessions. 
It  is  by  no  means  a  stagnant  age:  it  is  rather 
a  singularly  active  one;  it  misses  only  the 
sharp  stimulus  that  comes  from  direct  asso- 
ciation with  the  great  masters.  This  influ- 
ence, thus  removed  from  the  vital  plane, 
becomes  purely  spiritual,  but  remains  nev- 
ertheless potent  in  the  shaping  of  ideals. 
Meanwhile  (to  speak  more  particularly  of 
our  own  age),  literary  activity  is  greater 
than  ever  before.  There  is  a  wider  diffu- 
sion of  culture  than  in  any  time  past,  there 
are  more  people  who  are  capable  of  writ- 
ing fairly  good  books,  and  there  is  a  larger 
intelligent  public  devoted  to  the  reading, 
not  only  of  the  contemporary  product,  but 
also  of  the  books  that  have  come  down  to 
us  from  our  ancestors.  And  the  level  of 
average  excellence  reached  by  our  present- 
day  literary  craftsmen  is  truly  surprising. 
If  we  do  not  ascend  with  them  into  the 
highest  heaven  of  invention,  we  may  at 
least,  when  in  their  company,  pursue  an 
agreeable  course  upon  the  uplands,  where 
the  air  is  pure   and  bracing,  and  whence 

10 


we  may  have  frequent  glimpses  orthe  sun- 
lit peaks. 

Is  it  so  sure,  we  may  sometimes  ask,  our 
sense  of  gratitude  aroused  by  the  vital  truth 
and  the  appealing  idealism  of  the  new  book, 
fresh  from  the  writer's  heart,  to  which  our 
own  is  so  readily  responsive,  —  is  it  so  sure 
that  this  book  is  of  the  inferior  imitative  or 
secondary  type,  that  it  may  not  itself  come 
to  be  reckoned  among  the  classics,  and  held 
up  to  the  admiration  of  our  descendants  as 
a  rebuke  of  their  own  feeble  efforts  at  ex- 
pression? May  it  not  be  that  the  dead 
hand  weighs  more  heavily  upon  our  judg- 
ment than  it  should,  and  prevents  us  from 
doing  justice  to  the  work  of  our  contem- 
poraries? Has  it  not  always  been  the 
fashion  to  decry  one's  own  age  and  exalt 
the  past,  until  the  whirligig  of  time  has 
brought  in  its  revenges,  and  clothed  the 
figures  misunderstood  of  their  fellows  with 
the  vesture  of  the  immortals?  These  are 
searching  questions,  and  no  one  may  quite 
dare  to  give  them  a  blunt  negative ;  yet  if 
the  light  that  is  in  him  reveals  his  own  age 
as  one  of  decline  or  decadence,  the  critic 
may  in  honesty  do  no  more  than  write  what 
he  sees,  under  possible  future  correction 
at  the  hands  of  some  clearer-sighted  suc- 
cessor. He  will  be  the  first  to  allow  that 
every  age  has  its  own  oracles,  and  that, 
however  dubious  or  confused  their  utter- 

II 


ance,  they  must  not  go  altogether  unheeded 
because  of  too  bhnd  a  faith  in  the  oracles 
of  the  past. 

Let  us  consider,  by  way  of  emphasizing 
the  contrast  between  the  last  quarter- 
century  and  the  period  preceding  it,  a  few 
of  the  most  important  reputations  achieved 
since  1880.  There  is  Walter  Pater,  to  be- 
gin with,  known  at  that  time  only  by  a 
single  volume  of  essays.  During  the  score 
of  years  that  made  up  his  working  lifetime, 
his  philosophical  temper  and  his  delicate 
skill  in  aesthetic  analysis  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  finer  spirits  among 
his  contemporaries,  and  his  influence  was 
one  to  be  reckoned  with.  Probably  there 
never  was  a  book  that  took  its  place  more 
promptly  and  unquestionably  among  the 
classics  of  our  literature  than  ''Marius  the 
Epicurean";  and  its  successors,  although 
they  never  equaled  that  performance,  were 
of  rare  and  precious  quality.  And  yet,  as 
an  enduring  influence.  Pater's  work  may 
not  be  seriously  ranked  with  that  of  either 
Arnold  or  Ruskin,  to  name  the  two  men 
with  whom  comparison  is  most  natural. 
Our  attention  is  next  invited  by  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  that  winsome  personality 
who  bore  with  such  fortitude  the  sorrows 
of  illness  and  of  exile,  who  faced  adversity 
with  so  brave  a  front,  and  who  so  made 
the  best  of  a  bad  case  as  almost  to  con- 


12 


vince  us  that  he  had  small  need  of  sym- 
pathy. His  fame,  like  Pater's,  was  almost 
wholly  achieved  during  the  last  two  dec- 
ades of  the  century,  and  it  was  a  fame  that 
brought  with  it  more  personal  affection 
than  has  perhaps  been  lavished  upon  any 
other  English  author  since  Lamb.  But  his 
literary  product,  varied  and  charming  as 
it  is,  may  hardly  be  viewed  save  of  eyes 
dimmed  by  friendship,  as  resting  upon  the 
highest  plane.  With  the  work  of  Lamb 
and  Scott  for  touchstones,  we  must  admit 
that  ''Virginibus  Puerisque "  and  "Kid- 
napped" are  books  of  secondary  rank.  A 
pathetic  possibility  of  greatness,  rather 
than  greatness  itself,  must  be  the  sub- 
stance of  an  impartial  estimate  of  the  fruits 
of  Stevenson's  endeavor. 

These  two,  Pater  and  Stevenson,  seem 
to  be  the  two  stars  of  largest  magnitude 
that  have,  since  1 880,  emerged  from  the 
mists  of  the  horizon,  described  their  arcs, 
and  set.  A  few  other  stars,  still  visible  in 
the  English  firmament,  are  those  of  Mr. 
Kipling,  Mr.  Watson,  Mr.  Phillips,  Mr. 
Hewlett,  and  Mr.  Lang.  Mr.  Kipling's 
star  is  a  variable,  and,  when  flashing  out 
at  its  brightest,  has  attracted  world-wide 
attention.  But  when  we  look  dispassion- 
ately at  his  entire  miscellaneous  product, 
it  is  impossible  to  classify  much  of  it  as 
literature  of  the  higher  sort,   or  any  of  it 

13 


with  the  works  of  the  masters.  As  a  nov- 
elist he  has  failed,  and  as  a  writer  of  short 
stories,  while  he  has  done  many  striking 
things,  the  same  sort  of  things  had  been 
done  before  by  Bret  Harte,  and  probably 
better  done.  Then  he  has  given  us  the 
"Jungle  Books"  (more  nearly  works  of 
genius  than  any  of  the  others)  and  the 
poems.  With  the  fine  cadences  of  "Re- 
cessional" and  "The  Flag  of  England" 
echoing  in  our  ears,  it  would  doubtless  be 
unfair  to  characterize  the  whole  of  his 
verse,  in  Professor  Peck's  witty  phrase,  as 
"rag-time  poetry,"  but  that  phrase  comes 
dangerously  near  the  truth  in  its  applica- 
bility to  the  greater  part  of  the  Kipling 
product.  And  most  of  the  pieces,  by  vir- 
tue of  which  his  poetical  popularity  with 
the  multitude  has  been  won,  bear  little  or 
no  relation  to  poetry  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  word.  Mr.  Kipling's  ideals,  more- 
over, as  voiced  in  both  verse  and  prose, 
are  ethically  open  to  serious  question. 

Mr.  Lang  may  perhaps  be  taken  as  the 
most  typical  writer  of  our  critical  age. 
His  versatility  is  remarkable,  his  clever- 
ness is  something  diabolical,  and  he  has 
withal  the  gift  of  graceful  expression  and 
the  indefinable  quality  of  charm.  He  does 
nothing  that  he  does  not  well,  and  yet  he 
does  most  kinds  of  things,  —  poetry,  fiction, 
essays,   history,    philology,    and    folk-lore. 

H 


For  many  years  he  has  brightened  the 
ways  of  Hterature,  and  we  owe  him  a  deep 
debt  of  gratitude.  But  he  will  hardly  be 
found  in  the  pantheon  fifty  years  hence. 
Mr.  Hewlett  has  given  us  the  most  delight- 
ful interpretations  imaginable  of  Italian  life 
and  character;  he  has  also  explored  to 
happy  effect  the  thickets  of  medieval  ro- 
mance; we  admire  and  cherish  him,  but 
we  know  at  the  same  time  that  he  is  far 
from  being  one  of  the  immortals.  Mr. 
Watson  has  dedicated  himself  to  poetry  in 
a  very  serious  sense,  and  impressed  us 
anew  with  the  sacred  mission  of  the  singer. 
He  has  even  survived  the  injudicious 
trumpetings  with  which  his  fame  was 
threatened  by  over-zealous  champions,  and 
may  read  his  title  fairly  clear,  but  it  is  not 
the  title  of  a  Tennyson  or  a  Wordsworth, 
and  those  w^ho  would  persuade  us  to  that 
view  are  the  ones  who  do  him  the  most 
wrong.  Mr.  Phillips  has  also  been  hailed 
as  a  new  great  poet,  and  suffered  thereby, 
for  the  graceful  retelling  of  a  few  famous 
old-world  tales  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  exercise  of  the  creative  imagination. 
The  English  writers  thus  far  mentioned 
may  suffice  for  the  present  contention, 
which  is  simply  that  the  last  quarter- 
century  has  done  little  to  provide  substi- 
tutes for  the  great  writers  whose  death  it 
has  witnessed.      In  this  country,  the  defect 

15 


is  even  more  striking ;  we  have  a  host  of 
minor  poets  ;  we  have  also  Mr.  Woodberry 
and  Mr.  Moody  who  are  more  than  minor 
poets,  and  who  have  done  finer  work  than 
any  of  their  English  contemporaries  of  the 
newer  age;  we  have  excellent  writers 
swarming  in  all  the  departments  of  litera- 
ture, but  we  have  none  whose  perform- 
ance can  quite  reconcile  us  to  the  loss  of 
our  Lowell  and  our  Longfellow  and  our 
Emerson. 

Up  to  this  point,  more  has  been  said 
about  poets  than  about  novelists,  but  a 
survey  of  our  fiction  leads  to  substantially 
the  same  conclusion.  The  tendency,  grow- 
ing all  through  the  nineteenth  century,  of 
fiction  to  become  the  predominant  literary 
form  is  still  the  tendency  of  the  early 
twentieth  century.  Or  it  is  more  than  a 
tendency  now,  for  the  sway  of  the  novelist 
is  so  wide,  and  so  undisputed  by  the  vast 
majority  of  readers,  that  workers  in  other 
fields  get  scant  encouragement  by  compar- 
ison. But  where  are  the  successors  of  the 
older  novelists.''  We  do  not  say  of  Field- 
ing and  Scott,  but  of  Thackeray  and  Dick- 
ens, of  Charlotte  Bronte  and  George  Eliot, 
even  of  Bulwer  and  Reade.-'  Mr.  Hardy 
and  Sir  George  Meredith  remain,  but  their 
work  is  nearly  done,  and  they  belong  to  the 
glorious  past  rather  than  to  the  mediocre 
present.      Mr.  James  and  Mr.  Howells  are 

16 


with  us,  but  they  give  us  the  workmanship 
of  fine  art,  without  the  substance  which 
alone  can  make  it  enduring.  Mrs.  Ward 
and  Mrs.  Wharton  are  writers  who  carry 
intelHgence  and  conscience  and  talent  about 
as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  carry  them  ;  but 
who  would  say  of  either  that  she  had  pro- 
vided an  adequate  substitute  for  the  intel- 
lectual weight  and  the  moral  force  and  the 
creative  genius  of  George  Eliot?  We  have 
American  novelists  by  the  scores,  who  pro- 
vide us  with  much  agreeable  entertainment 
year  after  year,  but  we  once  had  a  Haw- 
thorne, and  who  would  pretend  that  Mr. 
Crawford  or  Mr.  Cable  or  Mr.  Allen  or 
Dr.  Mitchell  should  be  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  with  him  ? 

It  is  evident  that  the  search  for  com- 
manding personalities  among  the  newer 
English  writers  must  be  in  vain ;  we  have 
done  the  best  that  is  possible,  and  revealed 
only  an  array  of  writers  for  whom  nothing 
more  than  secondary  or  tertiary  rank  may 
fairly  be  claimed.  Since  personalities  thus 
fail  us,  there  remains  the  question  of  what 
may  be  called  currents,  or  tendencies,  or 
movements,  or  whatever  else  we  may 
choose  to  call  the  various  developments  of 
the  period  under  consideration.  Whatever 
of  interest  the  subject  has  must  be  sought 
chiefly  in  a  study  of  this  sort,  even  if  we 
reach  no  more  definite  conclusion  than  that 

17 


the  currents  are  cross-currents,  the  ten- 
dencies centrifugal,  and  the  movements 
divergent  and  confused.  The  difficulty  of 
such  an  investigation  is  very  great,  when 
the  student  has  to  deal  with  the  period  in 
which  he  is  himself  immersed,  or,  to 
change  the  metaphor,  when  his  field  of 
vision  is  so  circumscribed  that  he  cannot 
see  the  woods  for  the  trees.  It  is  easy  to 
make  hasty  generalizations,  and  quite  as 
easy  to  refute  them  with  others  of  the  same 
nature.  Yet  the  study  of  tendencies  and 
their  resulting  transformations  is  the  most 
important  part  of  the  history  of  any  litera- 
ture, and  it  is  better  to  get  an  imperfect 
view  of  the  evolutionary  process  that  must 
ever  be  at  work  than  to  ignore  that  aspect 
of  the  subject  altogether,  leaving  criticism 
to  take  refuge  in  the  old-fashioned  aesthetic 
appraisement  of  isolated  individuals. 

What  can  be  said,  for  example,  of  the 
probable  issue,  from  recent  indications,  of 
the  secular  conflict  between  the  forces  of 
realism  and  romanticism .''  We  have  been 
assured  over  and  over  again  by  the  realists 
that  their  foe  was  finally  and  ignominiously 
routed,  but  every  time  there  has  followed 
some  resurgence  of  the  romantic  impulse, 
the  ghost  has  refused  to  be  laid,  and  iri- 
descent fantasy  has  held  its  own  against 
sober-hued  truth  in  its  appeal  to  the  com- 
plex spirit  of  man.      Hosts  of  modern  read- 

i8 


ers  are  still  attracted  to  the  great  romantic 
writers  of  the  past,   and  delight  in  them, 
not   as  representing  an  outworn  phase  of 
expression,  —  a  curious  phenomenon  in  lit- 
erary history,  —  but  as  still  offering  a  vital 
response  to  the  deepest   demands  of   the 
soul.     And  as  long  as  Scott  and  Shelley 
thus  exercise  their  sway  over  our  hearts, 
so  long  will  their  spiritual  inheritors  —  no 
matter  how  much  the  inheritance  has  dwin- 
dled in  the  transmission  —  find  a  loyal  fol- 
lowing,   even    in   this   most   material    and 
bustling  age.      It  would  be  futile  to  argue, 
all  things  considered,  that  the  romantic  em- 
bodiment of  idealism  in  English  literature 
has  lost  either  its  vitality  or  its  potency  to 
weave  spells  over  the  modern  imagination. 
That  ' '  renascence  of  wonder, ' '  which  the 
unerring  insight  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has 
discerned  to  be  the  most  distinctive  char- 
acteristic   of    nineteenth-century    English 
poetry,  shows  no  signs  of  having  spent  its 
quickening  force.      Directly  related  to  this 
phase  of  our  discussion  is  the  recent  and 
highly  significant  rehabilitation  in  English 
literature  of  the  Celtic  or  Gaelic  element, 
—  an  influence  seemingly  moribund  a  gen- 
eration ago,  —  through  the  activities  of   a 
group  of  writers   numbering  Dr.   Douglas 
Hyde,  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats,  and  Mr.  G.  W. 
Russell  among  its  leaders.      It  may  be  a 
sort  of  Hibernicism  thus  to  characterize  as 

19 


a  development  of  English  literature  a  move- 
ment that  has  for  its  aim  the  revival  for 
literary  purposes  of  a  dying  form  of  speech, 
but  the  men  just  named,  and  others  as- 
sociated with  them,  have  written  chiefly 
in  English  despite  their  devotion  to  the 
Gaelic,  and  their  poems  and  dramas  and 
tales  have  contributed  much  to  our  imagi- 
native enrichment.  When  Matthew  Ar- 
nold discoursed  at  Oxford  forty  years  ago 
upon  Celtic  literature,  and  incidentally 
showed  how  the  intuition  of  genius  can  get 
at  the  heart  of  a  subject  with  no  more  than 
the  amateur's  equipment  of  scholarship,  he 
was  mainly  concerned  with  the  task  of  in- 
dicating the  indebtedness  to  the  Celt  of  our 
English  poetry,  "in  its  turn  for  style,  its 
turn  for  melancholy,  and  its  turn  for  natural 
magic,  for  catching  and  reading  the  charm 
of  nature  in  a  wonderfully  real  and  vivid 
way. ' '  He  impressed  us  with  the  concep- 
tion of  English  literature  as  uniting  "a  vast 
obscure  Cymric  basis  with  a  vast  visible 
Teutonic  superstructure,"  but  he  hardly 
foresaw  that  these  Celtic  elements,  basal 
though  they  might  be,  or  subtly  woven 
into  the  spiritual  texture  of  our  thought, 
would  ever  again  separate  themselves  from 
the  structure  or  the  pattern,  and  be  given 
concrete  embodiment  in  works  that  should 
be  undeniably  Celtic  through  and  through. 
Yet  this  is  what  has  happened  in  our  own 


20 


time,  and  in  so  notable  a  way  as  to  consti- 
tute one  of  the  most  striking  literary  man- 
ifestations of  recent  years.  The  Ossianic 
revival  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a 
mere  galvanic  phenomenon  as  compared 
with  the  really  vital  renascence  of  the 
Celtic  genius  that  we  are  now  witnessing. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  spirit  of  realism 
has  vastly  extended  the  area  of  its  activity. 
The  novelists,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the 
poets    also,    have  been  busily  engaged  in 
exploiting  special  conditions  and  aspects  of 
life  everywhere.      It  would  be  difficult  to 
name  an  occupation,  or  an  industry,  or  an 
intellectual  vagary,  or  a  racial  peculiarity, 
or  a  form  of  dialect,  or  a  persistent  pro- 
vincialism,   or   a   social   experiment,    or   a 
current  historical  happening,   that  has  not 
found    its    special    chroniclers   among  the 
writers  of  our  recent  fiction.      Socialism, 
hypnotism,  Christian  "Science."  the  labor 
agitation,  the  sweat-shop,  civil-service  re- 
form,   the  divorce   problem,    political   and 
commercial  corruption,   the  hovel  and  the 
mansion, — all  of  these  themes,  and  many 
more,  have  each  its  own  literature,  based 
upon  minute  observation  and  obviously  de- 
clared sympathy  or  disfavor.     The  life  of 
the    rustic,    the    miner,  the    engineer,   the 
sailor,  the  lumberman,  the  shop-girl,   the 
politician,    the    actress,    the  musician,   the 
artist,   and  the  poet  is  depicted  for  us  at 


21 


close  range,  often  with  a  needless  insist- 
ance  upon  detail,  but  usually  with  a  degree 
of  technical  familiarity  that  must  challenge 
our  admiration  if  it  does  not  win  the  ap- 
proval of  our  artistic  sense.  Dialects  and 
provincialisms  are  dragged  to  the  light  of 
publicity  with  the  same  zealous  determina- 
tion to  let  no  picturesque  possibility  escape 
the  curious  reader  of  fiction.  English 
novelists  portray  for  us  the  speech  and 
the  manners  of  Welshmen  and  Irishmen 
and  Scotsmen  (these  in  numerous  varie- 
ties), of  Manxmen  and  Shetlanders,  of  the 
rustics  of  Wessex  and  Dartmoor  and  Dev- 
onshire. American  novelists,  seizing  the 
more  diversified  opportunities  offered  by 
the  conglomerate  population  of  this  coun- 
try, seek  to  interest  us  (and  generally  suc- 
ceed) in  Georgia  crackers  and  Tennessee 
mountaineers,  in  Pennsylvania  miners  and 
Michigan  loggers,  in  Texas  cowboys  and 
Montana  ranchmen,  in  New  England  opera- 
tives and  Southern  field-hands  and  West- 
ern railway  employes,  in  the  descendants 
of  Creoles  in  Louisiana  and  of  Dutchmen 
in  New  York  and  of  Spaniards  in  Cali- 
fornia. Nothing  like  this  exhibit  was  ever 
made  or  attempted  in  any  earlier  period  of 
our  literature ;  of  no  other  time  have  we 
such  a  collection  of  social  documents. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  this  illumination 
of  the  nooks  and  corners  of  contemporary 

22 


life  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in  the  passion 
for  novelty  with  which  most  writers  are 
beset.  Genius  cares  little  whether  its  mat- 
ter be  new  or  old,  for  it  has  the  power  to 
bestow  eternal  freshness  upon  its  creations; 
but  we  are  now  concerned  with  something 
very  different  from  genius ;  namely,  with 
the  sort  of  talent  that  may  be  found  almost 
anywhere  under  the  conditions  brought 
about  by  our  widespread  systems  of  public 
education.  Now  this  kind  of  literary  abil- 
ity shrinks  from  being  compared  with  cre- 
ative power,  and  seeks  to  divert  attention 
from  its  imitative  or  derivative  character 
by  the  use  of  novel  subject-matter.  If  in 
addition  to  this  element  of  superficial  origi- 
nality there  may  be  devised  some  striking 
pose,  or  mannerism,  or  rhetorical  trick,  the 
disguise  is  complete  in  the  eyes  of  most 
readers,  who  put  about  as  little  conscience 
into  reading  as  their  favorite  authors  do 
into  writing.  The  device  may  be  an  affec- 
tation of  sugary  sentiment,  or  a  pompous 
parade  of  sophistical  philosophy,  or  an  ar- 
ray of  audacious  paradox,  or  almost  any 
other  form  of  trickiness ;  it  achieves  its 
purpose  if  it  provides  a  new  variety  of  sen- 
sation for  the  palate  that  has  been  dulled 
by  over-indulgence  in  literary  condiments. 
This  straining  for  effect,  for  originality 
at  any  cost,  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  cur- 
rent literature  handles  so  great  a  number 

23 


of  far-fetched  themes  in  so  great  a  variety 
of  manners.  A  deeper  reason  is  that  cur- 
rent literature  must  inevitably  share  in  the 
democratic  development  of  society.  There 
is  no  escaping  democracy,  and  we  have  to 
put  up  with  its  evils  for  the  sake  of  enjoy- 
ing its  benefits.  The  evils  are  probably 
not  inherent  in  its  nature,  but  in  its  pres- 
ent assault  upon  privilege  it  does  not  pause 
to  discriminate.  The  privilege  which  is 
nature's  gift  is  confused  with  the  privilege 
born  of  man's  selfishness,  and  one  gets  as 
scant  shrift  as  the  other.  Envy,  arro- 
gance, irreverance,  and  vulgarity  are  among 
the  most  conspicuous  features  of  democ- 
racy in  its  present  transitional  phase,  and 
literature  reflects  them  all.  Small  wonder, 
then,  that  books  should  be  written  upon 
the  theory  that  one  subject  is  as  good  as 
another,  that  a  man  of  affairs  is  as  worthy 
a  hero  as  a  man  of  ideas,  and  that  the  pul- 
sating present  is  superior  for  example  and 
admonition  to  the  lifeless  past. 

But  these  counsels  of  despair  are  not  the 
only  lessons  taught  us  by  the  democratiza- 
tion of  literature.  There  is  also  in  the  pro- 
cess a  saving  and  uplifting  element  which 
expresses  itself  in  broadened  human  sym- 
pathies and  a  deepened  sense  of  social  re- 
sponsibility. There  is  no  blinking  the  fact 
that  the  tide  of  socialism  is  rapidly  rising 
everywhere,  and  threatens  in  its  blind  on- 

24 


ward  sweep  to  engulf  not  only  the  selfish 
abuses  of  our  civilization,  but  much  also  of 
its  higher  spiritual  life.  It  particularly  be- 
hooves the  conservators  of  our  heritage  of 
wisdom  and  art  to  keep  their  heads  clear, 
to  deal  judiciously  with  this  invading  force, 
and  to  endeavor,  while  accepting  its  in- 
evitable consequences,  to  save  from  the 
deluge  those  finer  ideals  whose  repository 
must  ever  be  the  chosen  spirits  of  the  few 
rather  than  the  general  mind  of  the  un- 
thinking masses.  It  is  no  easy  matter  for 
our  vestal  virgins  to  keep  the  sacred  fire 
burning  upon  the  altar  in  these  stormy 
times  of  change. 

The  progressive  socialization  of  our  mod- 
ern society  is  closely  reflected  in  our  modern 
literature.  It  is  a  world-wide  movement, 
and  among  its  major  prophets  are  num- 
bered not  only  the  professed  workers  in 
economics  and  sociology,  but  also  the  poets 
and  the  novelists,  and  the  critics  of  litera- 
ture and  art.  Ruskin,  Morris,  Zola,  and 
Tolstoy  are  counted  among  its  standard- 
bearers,  and  the  last-named  writer's  tractate 
upon  the  principles  of  art  exhibits  a  sort  of 
danger-signal,  whereby  we  may  take  warn- 
ing of  what  the  movement  is  likely  to  mean 
if  its  direction  comes  under  the  unrestrained 
control  of  its  zealots.  To  make  the  move- 
ment effective  for  good  in  the  largest  sense 
(and  its  potentialities  for  that  purpose  are 

25 


enormous)  calls  for  a  leadership  based  upon 
social  sympathy  and  enlightened  judgment ; 
merely  destructive  criticism  of  its  vagaries 
will  do  little,  and  the  attitude  of  indiffer- 
entism  nothing  at  all,  toward  holding  it  in 
check. 

It  has  been  no  easy  matter  to  overcome 
the  spirit  of  smug  complacency  which  char- 
acterized English  literature  not  very  long 
ago.  It  was  a  spirit  content  to  hover  over 
the  surface  of  life,  and  finding  that  sur- 
face fairly  pleasant  to  look  upon,  it  made 
slight  effort  to  look  beneath.  It  could  find 
little  meaning,  for  example,  in  such  words 
as  those  of  Georg  Brandes,  outlining  his 
critical  programme  in  the  early  seventies. 
"I  go  down  to  the  foundations  of  real  life, 
and  show  how  the  emotions  which  find 
their  expression  in  literature  arise  in  the 
human  heart.  And  this  same  human  heart 
is  no  still  pool,  no  idyllic  mountain  lake. 
It  is  an  ocean,  with  submarine  vegetation 
and  terrible  inhabitants."  The  view  of 
criticism  which  the  Danish  writer  thus  de- 
termined to  oppose  was  the  natural  correl- 
ative of  the  view  of  life  itself  which  the 
makers  of  literature  sought  to  present. 
Since  then,  both  letters  and  the  criticism 
of  letters  have  got  closer  to  reality,  and 
have  greatly  enlarged  the  scope  of  their 
enterprise.  The  social  conscience  has  be- 
come aroused  in  earnest,  the  spirit  of  shal- 

26 


low  optipiism  has  been  exposed  in  all  its 
dull  insincerity,  and  has  given  place  to  a 
spirit  of  resolute  meliorism,  intent  upon 
baring  the  evils  of  society  as  a  necessary 
step  toward  the  application  of  their  proper 
remedy.  Half  a  century  ago,  such  books 
as  '  'Alton  Locke ' '  and  ' '  Felix  Holt ' '  were 
startling  novelties,  literary  phenomena  iso- 
lated from  the  prevailing  currents  of  their 
age  ;  to-day  books  of  their  type  have  grown 
so  common  that  it  takes  an  effort  to  realize 
how  modern  is  the  literary  fashion  which 
they  illustrate. 

We  must  carefully  distinguish  the  hu- 
manitarian impulse  of  a  preceding  genera- 
tion, aiming  only  at  the  exposure  and 
remedy  of  special  abuses,  from  the  more 
general  and  far  deeper  social  criticism  with 
which  recent  literature  has  become  infused. 
The  attacks  made  by  Dickens  and  Reade 
upon  the  management  of  prisons  and  mad- 
houses, upon  courts  of  chancery  and  pri- 
vate schools,  had  little  in  common  with  the 
terrific  indictment  of  modern  society  im- 
plicit in  the  later  books  of  Thomas  Hardy. 
Or,  to  take  examples  having  nothing  to  do 
with  literature  in  the  narrow  sense,  yet  ex- 
tremely significant  in  the  social  sense,  a 
comparison  might  be  made  between  "Uncle 
Tom ' s  Cabin  "  and  "  The  Jungle. ' '  There 
is  all  the  difference  that  exists  between  the 
exhibition  of  an   ulcer  and  a  diagnosis  of 

2^ 


poison  in  the  blood.  One  is  within  the 
reach  of  surgery;  the  other  (assuming  the 
diagnosis  to  be  correct)  calls  for  nothing 
less  than  complete  renovation  of  the  social 
organism. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  new-found  will- 
ingness of  many  of  our  writers  to  look  life 
squarely  in  the  face,  our  literature  has  lost 
that  fine  quality  of  reticence  which  was 
its  distinctive  mark  in  the  last  generation. 
The  extreme  propriety  of  our  literary  man- 
ners in  the  mid-Victorian  era  was  the  sub- 
ject of  more  or  less  ridicule  on  the  part  of 
foreign  observers,  and  when  propriety  de- 
generates into  prudery  and  casts  over  its 
shoulders  the  protecting  mantle  of  hypoc- 
risy, it  deserves  to  be  ridiculed.  Cant  is 
always  loathsome,  and  its  exhibition,  both 
in  English  literature  and  English  life,  fully 
deserved  the  bludgeon  of  Carlyle's  vehe- 
ment denunciation  and  the  satirical  shafts 
of  such  diverse  continental  critics  as  Heine 
and  Taine.  But  if  our  predecessors  car- 
ried reticence  too  far,  something  more  than 
compensation  for  their  restraint  may  be 
found  in  the  productions  of  their  latter-day 
successors.  A  recent  writer,  Mr.  Basil 
Tozer,  is  responsible  for  the  following 
statistics  :  ' '  Out  of  eighty-seven  selected 
novels  that  I  have  by  me  at  this  moment, 
and  that  have  been  published  within  the 
last  three  years  and  a  half,  books  that  have 

28 


had  considerable  vogue,  and  have  all,  at 
one  time  or  other,  been  obtainable  at  the 
circulating  libraries,  seventeen  adopt  the 
attitude  of  sneering  at  matrimony  as  a 
thing  '  played  out ' ;  eleven  raise  upon  a 
pinnacle  imaginary  co-respondents  in  im- 
aginary divorce  cases ;  twenty-two  prac- 
tically advocate  that  married  men  shall  be 
allowed  to  keep  mistresses  openly ;  seven 
hold  up  to  ridicule  the  wife  who  is  faithful 
to  her  husband ;  and  twenty-three  describe 
seduction  as  openly  as  it  can  be  described 
in  a  book  that  is  not  to  be  ostracized  by 
the  book-stalls."  Such  a  showing  as  this 
makes  one  think  that  even  prudery  may 
have  a  soul  of  unsuspected  goodness.  At 
all  events,  readers  of  "  Jude  the  Obscure" 
and  "Evelyn  Innes"  and  "The  Help- 
mate ' '  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  we  have 
gone  far  since  the  days  of  Anthony  Trol- 
lope.  When  literature  becomes  so  emanci- 
pated that  even  decency  is  felt  to  be  an 
intolerable  restraint,  it  is  time  to  remember 
Goethe's  deep  saying,  that  men  may  attain 
true  freedom  only  by  submission  to  the 
fundamental  laws  of  their  being. 

The  recent  literature  of  England  and 
America  supplies  examples  by  the  hun- 
dreds which  might  be  adduced  in  support 
of  our  thesis  concerning  the  growth  of 
social  sympathy.  The  poet,  the  novelist, 
and  the  playwright  all  make  their  contri- 

29 


bution,  and  the  new  social  note  is  sounded 
in  many  keys.  It  is  heard  in  the  shrill 
falsetto  of  the  sensationalist  whose  stock  in 
trade  is  limited  to  clever  epigram  and  star- 
tling paradox;  its  basso  ostinato  underlies 
most  serious  artistic  attempts  to  portray 
contemporary  life.  It  is  voiced  so  widely 
and  so  insistently  that  it  becomes  to  many, 
impatient  of  the  new  burden  of  responsi- 
bility which  it  would  fasten  upon  their  un- 
willing shoulders,  a  cause  of  irritation,  from 
which  they  turn  for  refuge  to  the  literature 
of  bygone  days,  the  literature  of  the  easy- 
going past,  of  entertainment  pure  and  sim- 
ple, of  manners  and  misty  romance,  or  if, 
perchance,  concerned  with  the  deeper 
issues  of  human  existence,  to  a  literature 
which  time  has  freed  from  the  pressure  of 
whatever  anxieties  gave  it  birth,  thus  mak- 
ing it  fit  for  the  delectation  of  minds  that 
shrink  from  the  envisagement  of  such  evils 
as  actually  surround  them. 

The  stream  of  socialistic  tendency  is  not, 
however,  the  only  movement  to  be  reck- 
oned with  in  an  attempt  to  make  clear  the 
recent  developments  of  our  literature.  It 
is  opposed  by  a  marked  counter-current  of 
individualizing  effort,  presenting  for  our 
admiration  the  type  of  the  masterful  man, 
whose  purpose  is  personal  triumph,  and 
whose  example  is  offered  in  many  quarters 
for  our  emulation.     This  movement  has  for 

30 


its  philosophical  basis  the  evolutionary  doc- 
trine in  an  undigested  form,  and  crudely 
applies  to  life  and  conduct  the  principle  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  was  inevi- 
table that  some  such  development  as  this 
should  accompany  the  acceptance  of  evolu- 
tion as  the  master-key  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation, and  should  pave  the  way  for  so 
extreme  a  philosophy  as  has  been  offered 
by  Nietzsche  to  ears  far  too  ready  to  re- 
ceive it,  —  a  philosophy  which  rejects  with 
scorn  the  whole  system  of  Christian  ethics, 
and  sees  in  successful  achievement  the  all- 
sufficient  sanction  of  every  kind  of  effort. 
This  is,  of  course,  a  question-begging 
philosophy,  for  it  interprets  "the  fittest" 
in  the  narrow  sense  needed  to  justify  a  re- 
jection of  those  motives  and  ideals  hitherto 
held  most  in  honor  by  Christian  civilization. 
But  it  is  a  dangerously  specious  doctrine, 
with  its  brave  pretense  of  clearing  away 
the  obstructions  that  impede  the  evolution- 
ary process,  and  its  dazzling  vista  of  a 
future  that  shall  realize  the  fully  developed 
type  of  the  overman. 

In  its  extreme  form,  this  philosophy  de- 
rives directly  from  the  teachings  of  Nietz- 
sche, although  the  writings  of  Carlyle  did 
much  to  prepare  the  way  for  it.  While 
Nietzsche  has  little  or  no  professed  follow- 
ing in  England  and  America,  his  influence 
has    nevertheless    been    considerable,    al- 

31 


though  insidiously  exerted  and  in  round- 
about ways.  His  bold  repudiation  of  the 
claims  of  the  weakling,  his  defiant  assertion 
of  the  individual's  right  to  ride  roughshod 
over  all  obstacles,  and  his  scornful  denunci- 
ation of  Christianity  as  the  embodiment  of 
a  servile  morality,  cringing  unworthily  be- 
fore the  false  idols  of  charity  and  forbear- 
ance and  self-sacrifice,  are  teachings  which 
chime  too  closely  with  the  frenzied  temper 
of  our  modern  materialism  to  fail  of  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  semi-conscious  acceptance. 
And  so,  in  opposition  to  the  marked  social 
trend  of  much  of  our  recent  literature, 
there  is  also  an  evident  trend  toward  self- 
indulgence  and  brutality  and  the  apotheosis 
of  strength.  There  are  only  too  many  who 
are  willing  to  recognize  as  an  adequate 
measure  of  the  good  the  intensity  of  indi- 
vidual desire  coupled  with  the  control  of 
the  means  of  its  realization.  Thus  un- 
abashed does  a  narrow  form  of  hedonism 
obtrude  itself  into  our  literature,  and  chal- 
lenge the  knights  of  the  spirit.  Those  of 
us  who  share  Kant's  conviction,  that  the 
moral  law  is  as  fixed  a  reality  as  the  starry 
heavens,  will  not  seriously  question  the 
ultimate  issue,  although  we  may  be  tem- 
porarily disheartened  by  the  weary  length 
of  the  combat. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  this  divided  al- 
legiance of  the  literary  forces   of  to-day. 

32 


There  have  always  been  writers  to  cham- 
pion the  soHdarity  of  social  interests,  and 
other  writers  to  assert  the  importance  of 
the  individual  and  to  emphasize  his  claims. 
But  the  line  of  battle  between  these  con- 
flicting ideals  is  more  sharply  drawn  than 
has  been  the  case  hitherto,  and  therein  lies 
the  distinctive  feature  of  the  present  situa- 
tion. It  is  a  difficult  problem,  both  for 
literature  and  for  ethics,  so  to  adjust  the 
opposing  demands  as  to  bring  them  into  a 
sort  of  harmony,  and  thus  enable  them  both 
to  contribute  to  the  advancement  of  hu- 
manity. Social  sympathy,  if  unregulated, 
always  runs  the  risk  of  degenerating  into 
a  dangerous  form  of  sentimentality,  while 
uncontrolled  individualism  runs  the  risk  of 
committing  wanton  outrage  upon  all  the 
instincts  which  men  rightly  cherish  as 
sacred.  Among  our  latter-day  prophets, 
Ibsen  seems  to  have  been  more  successful 
than  most  of  his  compeers  in  marking  out 
the  via  media  which  best  satisfies  the  bal- 
anced judgment.  Holding  character  to  be 
the  thing  that  chiefly  counts,  he  preached 
individualism  incessantly,  but  always  an 
individualism  tempered  and  controlled  by 
obligation.  Even  when  he  seemed  to  be 
saying  most  vehemently  that  a  man's  first 
duty  is  toward  himself,  there  was  always 
the  implication  that  this  duty  is  made  im- 
perious by  the  claims  of  others  upon  the 

33 


individual  thus  self-strengthened.  So  he 
emphasized  successively  the  obligation  of 
husband  to  wife,  of  parent  to  child,  of  pas- 
tor to  flock,  and  of  the  good  citizen  to  so- 
ciety. It  was  essentially  Goethe's  teaching 
applied  to  special  modern  conditions. 

This  discussion  of  the  present  situation 
in  English  literature  has  taken  us  far  afield, 
and  the  impatient  reader  may  ask  what  on 
earth  Nietzsche  and  Ibsen  and  Goethe  have 
got  to  do  with  the  case.     The  question  is 
easily  answered.      No  survey  of  a  literary 
period  in  any  country  can  be  worth  much 
unless  it  takes  foreign  influences  into  ac- 
count.    This  has  always  been  true  to  some 
extent,  and  it  is  vastly  truer  at  the  present 
time  than  it  ever  was  before.      Even  the 
earlier  periods  of  our  own  literature  require 
for  our  comprehension  that   we  take    ac- 
count of  the  streams  of  influence  flowing 
in  upon  it  from   Italy,   France,  and  Ger- 
many.     But  in  none  of  those  earlier  peri- 
ods was    there    so    much  of   this   sort    of 
reaction  to  impressions  from  without  as  is 
now  the  case,  when  not  only  the  greater 
but  also  the  lesser  writers,  not  only  of  the 
greater    but  also  of  the  lesser   countries, 
speedily  find  their  way  to    English    audi- 
ences, and  blend  their  voices  in  the  chorus 
with    which  our  ears  are  filled.      A    self- 
contained   literature  is  no  longer  possible 
anywhere   in   the  world,  —  not    in  the   old 

34 


Greek  sense,  nor  even  in  the  more  limited 
modern  French  sense.  It  was  a  modern 
Frenchman  who  devised  the  formula  which 
must  henceforth  become  the  ideal  of  every 
national  literature.  "  Rester  soi-meme  et 
pourtant  s'unir  aux  autres."  England  can 
no  longer  boast  of  its  "  splendid  isolation" 
in  literature  any  more  than  it  can  in  poli- 
tics, and  the  American  offshoot  of  English 
literature  has  proved  itself  rather  more  sus- 
ceptible to  alien  influences  than  is  the  main 
trunk.  In  many  cases,  it  has  been  Amer- 
ican receptivity  that  has  set  England  the 
example ;  and  all  the  way  from  the  Concord 
period  down  to  our  own,  American  writers 
have  been  alert  to  detect  the  new  foreign 
note  and  seize  the  message  of  the  old  for- 
eign classic.  That  the  spirit  of  cosmopol- 
itanism has  become  a  permanent  factor  in 
the  development  of  English  literature  is 
one  of  the  clearest  signs  of  the  times. 
Despite  the  occasional  aberrations  of  taste 
and  extravagances  of  enthusiasm  that  may 
accompany  the  new  habit  of  looking  abroad 
for  the  fresh  inspiration  or  the  fertilizing 
thought,  the  current  now  sets  so  strongly 
in  the  direction  of  intellectual  free-trade  as 
to  be  in  no  danger  of  checks  or  reverses. 
For  good  or  for  evil,  —  and  I  hold  it  for 
good, — the  world  is  fast  growing  one  in 
spirit,  and  this  at  a  time  when,  as  never 
before,    the   instinct    of    race    is    asserting 

35 


itself  as  a  force  in  the  shaping  of  poHties, 
and  the  arousing,  among  men  of  the  same 
stock,  of  a  common  consciousness  of  their 
distinctive  character.  In  a  word,  the  for- 
mula of  the  Frenchman,  previously  quoted, 
is  being  fulfilled  before  our  very  eyes  in 
the  combined  literary,  social,  and  political 
movement  of  the  present  day,  among  the 
English,  as  among  the  other  chief  peoples 
of  the  modern  world. 


i 


36 


"A  Q_UARTER-CENTURY  OF 
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